Email & Internet Access for Businesses

Background

Both electronic mail (email) and access to the Internet are becoming important business tools. Email is fast, cheap, versatile and an excellent way of communicating with customers and suppliers alike. The Internet provides a wealth of valuable information to business users. GBdirect can help you to get the best out of both - as we outline below.

Electronic mail is an ideal form of communication both within and outside organisations. It allows you to reach people directly at their desk without going through switchboards or playing telephone tag and it's much faster than the post. It allows you to send documents for comment and approval without the need to print then fax them or to re-type the comments received. Email allows you to send messages to groups as easily as to individuals, gives you flexibility in designating individual or functional rôles as recipients - and more besides. It brings real benefits, quickly and cheaply. Having an email address is nowadays becoming as important to a business as its phone number.

Whether your business is small or large, whether you have no desktop computers or extensive networks covering multiple sites, GBdirect can provide you with email solutions that will work well for your business and your needs.

Internet Access

The Internet nowadays provides a huge and rapidly-growing library of information about products, suppliers, prices, regulations, regions ... almost anything you can think of searching for is likely to be there already. UK businesses have been quick to realise that this is a low-cost and highly effective channel for providing commercial information. The US was even quicker to make use of it.

There are two sides to using the Internet as a business tool. To view the information available, you only need to be able to get access to the Internet using a viewing program (commonly called a browser); that's what we we deal with here. To publish your own information is a separate activity.

Business Solutions

Giving Internet and email access to people from their desktops need not be expensive or difficult. Many organisations already have internal networks that are suitable for connection via a secure gateway or "firewall". If you have multiple networks and distributed sites or just a small number of standalone PCs, we can provide solutions that will fit your needs, giving your business a consistent external image and your own email/Internet address.

Intranets

Many companies are using Internet technologies to improve their internal communications, providing low-cost and highly functional alternatives to expensive internally developed special-purpose applications. Whilst there is not the space here to discuss the wide range of options, our "Intranet Guide" could be of interest to you. Just ask us to send you one.

Prices

Full "mail/internet-to-desk" solutions for existing small business networks will typically cost in the region of £3,500 to £4,000 to install and around £350 per year to run. More complex installations will need to be investigated carefully, especially if existing email packages are already in use. Whatever the situation may be, please call us for more information. We pride ourselves on providing high-quality solutions that work, with a minimum of jargon and bafflement!